All About:Pirate Cinema

Hey, Toronto! I’ll be at the Harbourfront International Festival of Authors on Thursday and Friday nights, both times at 8PM. On Thursday, I’m reading with Larissa Andrusyshyn, Stuart Clark, Corey Redekop and Robert J. Sawyer; on Friday, I’m doing a double-act with China Mieville. From there, I head to Boston for the final appearance of my Pirate Cinema tour: an appearance at the Boston Book Festival at 415PM. Hope to see you! Here’s the full schedule.

Hey, Seattle! I’ll be in town for one day only today, making a pair of public appearances — first at the University Bookstore at 1230h, then at Elliot Bay Books at 1900h. Both are free! From Seattle, I go east for the last two cities in my Pirate Cinema tour: first a pair of evening gigs at the Toronto Harbourfront International Festival of Authors (Oct 25: a joint reading with Larissa Andrusyshyn, Stuart Clark, Corey Redekop and Robert J. Sawyer; Oct 26, a double-interview with China Mieville); then a Boston Book Festival appearance on Oct 27 at 1615h. After that, I get to go home and see my family for the first time in six weeks (and belatedly celebrate my fourth anniversary, yikes!) (I have a very, very patient wife). Here’s the full tour schedule, come on out and witness the miracle of my still being able to walk and talk after eighteen cities and six weeks! (PS: the Humble Ebook Bundle runs out in ten hours!)

Hey, Vancouver and Victoria! Today I wrap up my Pirate Cinema tour weekend in Van with an appearance for the BC Civil Liberties Association and the Centre for Digital Media at 11AM at the Great Northern Way Campus, then I jump on a sea-plane and head to Victoria for a talk tonight at Bolen Books at 7PM. Tomorrow I’ll be flying to Seattle for a pair of appearances there (University Bookstore at 1215h, Elliott Bay Books at 19h). From there, it’s on to Toronto for a talk on-stage with China Mieville at the Harbourfront International Festival of Authors, and then I’m in Boston for the Boston Book Festival. Here’s the whole tour schedule.

Yo, Vancouver! Thanks to all of you who turned up to both of the sold-out events yesterday at the Writers Festival. If you missed out, I’ve got another event tonight, at Kidsbooks at 7PM, and I’ll be at the Great Northern Way Campus Centre for Digital Media on Monday at 11, before I head to Victoria for a 7PM event at Bolen Books. From there, I go to Seattle, Toronto and Boston (Here’s the full schedule).

Just now, a few minutes before 10AM Pacific, the Humble Ebook Bundle crossed the $1 MILLION mark. Yes, it’s an arbitrary round number, but it’s a BIGGUN! For those of you who haven’t clocked it, the Humble Ebook Bundle is a collection of 13 ebooks — science fiction, fantasy, and graphic novels — for which you can name your price, and designate some or all of your money to charity in the process. I’m over the danged MOON. You’ve got just about three days to get in on the deal before it vanishes!

Joly MacFie from The Punkcast was good enough to bring his cameras down to my Pirate Cinema tour stop at Brooklyn’s WORD books, and has uploaded the presentation (including the airing of the runners-up and winner of the remix video contest we held) to YouTube. Thanks, Joly!

Hey, Vancouver! Quick reminder: there are still some tickets left for my appearance with William Gibson today at the Vancouver Writers Festival (the conversation with Margaret Atwood is sold out, alas), and I’ll be around tomorrow at 7PM for a Kidsbooks event at the West Point Grey United Church, and then on Monday at 11AM at the Great Centre for Digital Media at the Northern Way Campus. The full schedule (including my stops in Victoria, Seattle, Toronto and Boston) is here.

Hey, Vancouver! I’m headed your way tomorrow for a pair of ticketed appearances at the Vancouver Writers Festival, the first with William Gibson at 2PM, then another at 5PM with Margaret Atwood and Pasha Malla. On Sunday at 6PM, Kidsbooks (one of the last great independent children’s bookstores in the country) is hosting an event for me at the West Point Grey United Church. On Monday at 11AM I’ll be at the Great Northern Way Campus Centre for Digital Media at 11AM, and then at Victoria’s Bolen Books at 7PM. After that, I head to Seattle, Toronto, and Boston — here’s the whole schedule. Be there or be somewhere else, but if you can, be there!

Hey, Edmonton! A reminder: I’ll be at the free PAGES library conference tomorrow morning at the Stanley Milner Library. My keynote is at 9:15 AM, followed by a Q&A at 1130h and a signing at 1, before I head out to Vancouver for the Vancouver Writers Festival where I’ll be doing two ticketed events; one with William Gibson and the other with Margaret Atwood and Pasha Malla. There’s more stuff in Vancouver to follow, then Victoria, Seattle, Toronto and Boston (here’s the full schedule). I hope you’ll make it — tell your friends!

When MegaUpload was shut down, the Japanese media fan community was in an uproa, as it was our main way to directly share our sources and creations. Patchy torrents are now all that remains, along with a handful of somewhat reliable cloud servers. Those aren’t even guaranteed, and in the bleakest of moments we worry that we’ll have to resort to the days of recording to video or DVD and sharing videos that way.

We’re slowly rebuilding, but we’ve been hit hard. All of our archives are gone. Communities that had thrived for years—places you might find a long-forgotted drama from 1987—are gone. The videos that I had made and hosted on MegaVideo are gone. All of the files I’d hosted and provided for people are gone. Even the ones I had created myself, for classwork and without any copyrighted material, are gone. They exist only offline, in random external drives, where they cannot be shared.